1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a telecommunication network comprising a primary station and a plurality of secondary stations, the secondary stations being linked to the primary station via a transmission medium which is at least partly in common for a number of secondary stations.
The invention also relates to stations for use in such network and to a communication method for such networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
A telecommunication network according to the preamble is known from the conference paper "Network Evolution for End User Access to Interactive Digital Services" by C.-J. L. van Driel and W. A. M. Snijders, Proceedings of "The Last Mile of the Information Superhighway", IBC conference, Sydney, August 1994.
Such telecommunication networks are used for communication between several secondary stations and a primary station, via a transmission channel being, at least partially, common to some of the secondary stations. Such transmission channel can comprise an optical fibre, a coaxial cable, or a radio link. Application of such transmission systems can be passive optical networks, cable TV systems, local area networks, systems for satellite communication and mobile radio systems.
In transmission systems utilising a common channel for some secondary stations it must be ensured that no interference is caused by secondary stations simultaneously transmitting information to the primary station. However, to ensure an adequate service for the secondary stations, it is also required that efficiency of the data transport over the network be high, particularly under heavy load conditions.
There exist various different access protocols, such as Aloha and slotted Aloha, for such type of networks. However these protocols suffer from a very low efficiency under heavy load conditions.